Bobcat Goldthwait’s career as a director (Shakes the Clown, God Bless America, World’s Greatest Dad) continues to reduce our memory of him as a comedian and actor (Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, Police Academy 3: Back in Training, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol). His latest film, Call Me Lucky, is a powerful, brutal, and yet funny and uplifting documentary about Barry Crimmins, a comedy writer for television and the ill-fated Air America Radio, and an intimidating, underestimated comedian/political satirist who comedy heads might remember better from his appearance in When Stand Up Stood Out (2003), a documentary exploring the Boston comedy boom of the ‘80s-’90s.

Bobcat Goldthwait’s career as a director (Shakes the Clown, God Bless America, World’s Greatest Dad) continues to reduce our memory of him as a comedian and actor (Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, Police Academy 3: Back in Training, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol). His latest film, Call Me Lucky, is a powerful, brutal, and yet funny and uplifting documentary about Barry Crimmins, a comedy writer for television and the ill-fated Air America Radio, and an intimidating, underestimated comedian/political satirist who comedy heads might remember better from his appearance in When Stand Up Stood Out (2003), a documentary exploring the Boston comedy boom of the ‘80s-’90s.

I would like to thank my Tweet-homie @samstecky, who works (I think) in Chicago, at the electronic carpetbagger-of-Baltimore site Chicago Sun Times—I mean, Baltimore Sun Times—for inquiring as to the WWWhereabouts of the piece referred to here as a “[m]ost penetrating piece of media criticism.” Har!

Flipping around cable, I land on 1993's Carlito's Way and check in for a few scenes of a lurid, pulpy, and very Brian De Palma movie that's arguably like Scarface with an interior life. And as Al Pacino struts and chews his way through another role with another weird accent that ultimately leaves him sounding exactly like Al Pacino, I'm thinking, there are some bad aspects to this film, but it was a success, or at least wasn't a complete failure. But every actor, especially the Accomplished ones, make at least one clinker or stinker, lay an egg, drop a bomb. So what was Al Pacino's Worst Movie Ever?

Here is a previously unpublished Mr. Wrong column from February of 2014, which was never printed in City Paper, the Alternative Weekly in Baltimore, Maryland. The column was written as CP was being sold to the Baltimore Sun Media Group, which publishes the Baltimore Sun, a daily newspaper owned by Tribune Publishing. This particular column is a distillation of the Fear, Apprehension, and Uncertainty-terror I was experiencing upon learning of the deal, along with the idea I might never again get to write the F-word—a large, and possibly only, element of the The Mr. Wrong Column's brand identity—in my column with the expectation of seeing it printed. Plus the idea that I might lose my day job. Which I did, lose my day job, but The Mr. Wrong Column continues, pooped out weekly by me in my capacity as a Valued Freelancer for City Paper, tolerated by the Baltimore Sun Media Group, so I've got that going for me.

Lloyd Grove, on the Daily Beast, in a sort of irony/empathy juggling act, wrote aboutWashington Post columnist, contributing editor for The Atlantic, New York Times bestselling author, and "CNN Presenter" Fareed Zakaria, host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on Sundays on CNN (check your local listings) and the trouble he's in for his plagiarizing of all kinds of material, from martini recipes to unimportant stuff, and how "pathetically uncredentialed, no-account bloggers who go by the ridiculous Twitter handles @Blippoblappo and @Crushingbort" are bringing possible ruination down upon the "[i]mperially slim and darkly handsome, possessed of an insinuating charm and a cultured manner of speech that recalls the British Raj" Zakaria, also known to Mr. Grove as "America's most celebrated public intellectual."

Don Pardo was an announcer at NBC for 60 years. He started in television so long ago it was on the radio, in 1944. The heaviest moment of his career was in 1963, when he was "booth announcer" on a shift at WNBC-TV in New York. Pardo did an off-camera "rip-and-read," from a big marked-up paper printout of an Associated Press wire-service bulletin, handed to him by an editor, and he announced the shooting of President Kennedy.

The animal spirit of The Expendables 3 is a giant fleshy machine gun made out of a bronzed, tumescent, veiny biceps and meaty forearm, and it's flying around, screaming, belching explosion-flames, smoking a cigar, and shooting out greasy bullets all over everything while it cracks jokes about Bruce Willis.

I am a Thought Leader of Television, and so I've been asked to ruminate on the Big News that Jeopardy!—yeah! the exclamation point! is officially part of the title!—beat Wheel of Fortune in the ratings a coupla weeks ago, the first time in over a decade, and is this perhaps an indicator that maybe America is trending smarter? Please? More Smart People watching teevee, at least? Of course not! Nobody's getting smarter! It's Television!

]]>jeopardywheel of fortunefamily feudalex trebekknown canadianspat sajakgame show hosts whose names end in ksteve harveyrichard dawsontelevisiontvteeveeimbecilesnot in the form of a questionwatson never bought a vowelyour momflWed, 25 Jun 2014 13:41:00 GMT1588975082http://joemacleod.kinja.com/fraud-at-polls-rahm-emanuel-winning-dance-off-vs-char-1580098831